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OPINION

Now's the time to take in downtown Wilmington pleasures

WIL
Published 11:17 p.m. ET Dec. 5, 2013

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-Carolers in Rodney Square draw a crowd during last year's Caroling on the Square.(Photo: The News Journal)Buy Photo

The continuing distressing news about murder, shootings and drug dealing in parts of Wilmington has obscured some of the positives about the city that need to be emphasized.

This column will not be an effort to obscure the violence and tragedies but add to Downtown Vision's Martin Hageman's recent Delaware Voice that real pleasures await you in the mid city.

A good start would be tomorrow evening's Caroling on the Square. It starts at 6:30 at Peter Spencer Plaza, near 8th and French streets. From there candle-carrying carolers will walk to the 142-year-old Grand Opera House and then to Rodney Square for a Christmas tree lighting.

Look around that recently refurbished square, still the architectural heart of the city. On the south side is the Wilmington Library, currently being remodeled. On the east is the century-old former home of city and county offices and the courts, which today stands fully restored into the law offices of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor.

To the north is the tower Wilmington Trust built alongside the foundation of the former Wilmington Post Office. Still in the lobby is one of the many murals painted during the 1930s Depression by the Federal Arts Project.

Look north on Market Street from there you'll see First and Central Presbyterian Church, a site for worship and concerts. Next to it is the Wilmington Club in a 150-year-old mansion and a sharp contrast to its neighbor, an office building designed by architect I. M. Pei.

To the west is the DuPont Building, once the standout downtown structure you could see from afar. It houses not just the offices of the company that was once Delaware's biggest employer but the landmark hotel, the dining of the Green Room and the DuPont Theatre, which many of us still call the Playhouse.

As you explore further I highly recommend guidance from a just published book that covers downtown between the Brandywine and the Christina. In "Wilmington: Preservation and Progress," Gene Castellano chronicles the "radical changes" he saw in the city when he returned after working out of state. In 1984, he photographed streets and corners and buildings with the intention of revisiting them in the future. He did so about 25 years later and his recent color photos, placed opposite the black-and-white earlier ones, dramatically show the preservation and change that have taken place.

Castellano, who for many years was with the DuPont Co., is now at W. L. Gore. (Disclosure: I read the early manuscript.) This beautifully printed hardcover book is on sale in time for a possible holiday gift at the Ninth Street bookstore at 8th and Market streets, in the heart of the city, and in the bookstores of Hagley and Winterthur Museums, and the Delaware Historical Society.

That society, which will celebrate its 150th anniversary next year, has two locations worth exploring in them. Its Delaware store and meeting rooms are in the former F. W. Woolworth store that one boasted the longest soda fountain in the country. Across the street in a former bank building is its library where you can dive into Delaware history and your genealogy.

North of the society is Wilmington's 1801 Town Hall, next to the former Mullin's Department store converted into Saville housing for students of the Delaware College of Arts and Design, across the street. South of the society is the World Café Live at the Queen Theater with its menu of entertainment and food.

The area is home to many other restaurants but I want to single out one, Govatos' at 8th and Market streets, not for its lunch, but for the delicious chocolates the company has been turning out since the end of the 19th Century.

I could go on but right now it's worth coming downtown for free parking, but only after 12 noon and only for two hours in one spot. The parking gift has been in effect for weeks without a formal press release to the dismay of a News Journal letter writer who got a ticket visiting the Jaycees' post-Thanksgiving parade

Let me add three other recommended guides to the Wilmington that was: Harry Rogerson's paperback "Wilmington: Picturing Change," Ellen Rendle's hardback "The Ghosts of Market Street" and the website, oldwilmington.net.